Top Advertising Campaigns of 2009-2010, Part 1 of 2
So far we’ve seen some great advertising campaigns. What I wanted to do was point out the top four that statistically have enjoyed the most success, and then add in a couple of my own that I personally enjoy.I originally planned to make this one blog entry, but I’ve found so many that I enjoy so much that I’ve decided to make it a two part entry. Today I will do the top successes, and tomorrow I’ll do my personal favorites. All of these however, I also enjoy, and recommend you watch each advertisement, even if you don’t necessarily have a taste for marketing or advertising I feel that these commercials are enjoyable none the less.
1) Old Spice- The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
These two commercials were sequential advertisements released by Old Spice and they are their new campaign for the year. Their results have been tremendous; the first video has over 11 million views on YouTube. It has also received praise from advertisers around the country as being the best campaign of the year, and I have to agree. Not only did I enjoy the first advertisement, but I was anticipating the release of the second one. How big has it been? It’s not just me that liked it, the commercial made by Wieden & Kennedy Portland, won the grand prix award at the Cannes International Film Festival. Mark Tutssell, president of film lions category, said that the commercial had “taken an old, sleeping brand and woken it up”. “Overnight [the ad] worked its way into popular culture, it has re-ignited a sleeping giant”. The previous campaign to this, which featured Terry Crews, an actor and ex football player in which he played an over hyped up excited shouting muscle monster who gained his power from Old Spice’s “Oder blocking power”, was a failure. These were not very successful and have been mostly replaced by thte Man Your Man Can Smell Like campaign. What was better is that after the release, they made over 180 personalized viral videos released on YouTube for fans of the series. Just how popular was it? According to Mashable, 5.9 million people have viewed these videos, leaving 22,500 comments, and that was since this past Tuesday (7/13/2010). The series has been so successful, it’s already been compared to Apple’s “Mac vs PC” campaign.
2)Philips Television “Parallel Lines- The Gift” by Erik Rinsch
The commercial, which was made by DDB London, is the latest from the Dutch electronics company in which they show the crystal clear quality of their televisions set by way of some type of epic story/commercial. This commercial has not received much play in the United States, and without proper research I probably would’ve never encountered it. I’m sure that it is run here, I just haven’t seen it on Time Warner Cable yet. The point of this commercial is to advertise the new, unique cinematic viewing experiences offered by Philips range of televisions sets. The campaign demonstrates Philips commitment to bringing the cinema experience home, and Philips seems to understand that if what they’re trying to sell is a “cinematic experience”, then creating compelling cinematic content is the best way to offer consumers the chance to experience the cinematic capabilities of its TVs.
The Philips company, which is not known for its strong advertising, has in the past couple years transformed itself in that manner. Last year, Philips also won an award for their commercial last year (which you can view here) and most have said they’ve shattered the image of not being an advertising company.
3) Johnnie Walker- “The Man Who Walked Around The World“
This commercial, starring Robert Carlyle (If you don’t know who that is, click here), was all shot in one take near Loch Doyne in Scotland. During the commercial, Carlyle talks about the history of Johnnie Walker (the apparently true history) and I believe it is the setting and the delivery that give this commercial its greatness. I really enjoyed watching it and although it was simple and pretty cost efficient it was very effective. For some reason, everywhere that I read mentions that it took about 40 takes to get this commercial right, and it was the final 40th take that they used as the commercial. That is pretty interesting I suppose. Anyways, it’s a great spot and I’ve enjoyed watching it, it also won an award at the Cannes Film Festival this year, beating out Gatorade’s “Replay” advertisement shown right below this. I wanted to include this because I thought it was moving, however it failed to bring home any hardware.
4) Apple’s IPhone 4 Ad
This is one of 4 ad’s, if you’d like to view the rest of these advertisements you can click on these links in parenthesis (You’re going to be a Dad, New Haircut, and Smile). Lets pretend for one second that Apple hasn’t totally screwed up this whole IPhone 4 thing with their design flaw, this is not the point of this post. If you’d like to read about Apples problems, you can read my other blog entitled “Apple: IPhone 4 Mismanagement”. These campaigns tug at the hearts of their audiences and I believe they are brilliant. I don’t particularly like the “You’re going to be a Dad” one, merely because I don’t like the actress in it very much, but I do enjoy the other ones. When you have such a strong brand like Apple does, and clearly a brilliant advertising team, you have a great formula for success. Man, what I wouldn’t give to be on that advertising team; what a product brand to work with!
That’s all for the top campaigns of the year. Tomorrow, I will update my four personal favorite ads for the year so far. Hope you all have enjoyed this, and don’t forget to catch up on my other blog series on my HOME page
